


D's First Kiss

by ohnocantthink



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: Childhood, Developing Friendships, First Kiss, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 07:53:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12979524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohnocantthink/pseuds/ohnocantthink
Summary: Danevhen, a young member of the Lavellan clan, encounters a pair of human twins in the forest. If intimidating them doesn't work, perhaps befriending them will.





	D's First Kiss

There was someone else in the woods. From his perch in the branch of a tree, just hidden from the game trail beneath, Danevhen strained his ears. The birds had gone suddenly silent; something had spooked them. It could be a wolf or a bear, but for some reason Danevhen didn’t think so. The forest felt altered in some unnatural way, and Danevhen peered through the dense woods, curious. He couldn’t see what has caused the disturbance but—there. Voices coming from the clearing. Had Clan Lavellan’s hunters returned already? It seemed unlikely.

Carefully, Danevhen shimmied down the tree and crept closer.

“I think we’ve got enough embrium, but if we don’t find more elfroot mama is going to kill us.” It sounded like a girl’s voice, speaking the common tongue, but the inflection was all wrong, flat and staccato.

“Did you hear something?” This second voice was a boy, Danevhen was sure, and his voice had the same odd cadence.

“Awww, is poor wittle Elly afraid of the woods?” A scuffling sound commenced and Danevhen used the cover to creep closer until he could see two teenagers about his age in the clearing. Their appearance was startling; they were big, for starters, each standing a full head taller than Danevhen, and dressed in odd, colorful clothing. Most striking were their tiny, round ears. Humans, and busy stealing the forest’s herbs based on the overflowing bags at their feet.

Danevhen’s heart pounded. If he were older and a proper hunter, he would confront them and drive them out of the wood, but he wasn’t even an apprentice yet. Still, they were only a couple miles from camp, and the hunters always said that it was vital to protect the camp’s exact location from prying humans. With a single steadying breath, Danevhen stepped into the clearing, an arrow nocked and pointed directly at the girl.

“You’re trespassing, shemlen.”

The boy’s reaction was gratifying—he blanched and stumbled several steps backwards—but the girl didn’t even stand up from where she was crouched in a patch of herbs.

“Aye,” she said, “But not on your land, elf. This land belongs to Lord Harris, so I suppose you’re trespassing just as much as us.”

“Emmaline!” the boy hissed. “I think he’s a Dalish.”

The girl called Emmaline looked up at Danevhen, cocking her head curiously. “Nah, he doesn’t have the tattoos. He’s just a stupid alienage elf.”

Danevhen drew the arrow back. “I am Dalish,” he declared, “And, and you have to leave because there’s a lot more of us, you just can’t see them.”

“Oh?” said Emmaline. “Then how come you’re so scared? If you’ve got us surrounded you wouldn’t be shaking, would you?”

“Let’s just go,” muttered the boy.

“Nonsense,” Emmaline answered. “If you’re Dalish,” she said, addressing Danevhen, “Where’s your clan? I haven’t heard of any Dalish around here.”

“We um, we just got here a few days ago,” he answered without quite meaning to, taken aback by this odd shemlen.

“Okay, well, I’m Emmaline,” the girl said, “and that’s my brother Elliot. We won’t bother you if you don’t bother us. We’re just after elfroot and embrium, and there’s plenty to go around. If you people even use it. Do you?”

“Use what?” Danevhen asked, lowering his bow as he stepped forward. “What did you call that?”

“Elfroot? For healing?”

Condescending stupid shemlen. “I know what it is. That’s just not what it’s called.”

“I suppose you have some elfy name for it,” said Emmaline, returning to her gathering. After a moment, she glanced back at Danevhen, who was still hovering uncertainly at the edge of the clearing. “Are you going to stay? Because you could help us, you know.” Her brother, Elliot, looked less than pleased with this proposition, staring apprehensively at Danevhen.

Danevhen considered for a long moment. Not all shemlen were bad; after all, the clan traded with them all the time. Maybe these two were harmless. They had to be better than the other kids of Clan Lavellan, anyhow, most of whom would barely speak to him just because stuck-up know-it-all Samahla told them not to. “This isn’t really the best place to gather it,” he finally said. “There’s a place closer to the river where it’s all over. I could show you.”

Emmaline glanced at her brother, who nodded, and together they followed Danevhen deeper into the woods.

Three weeks later, the three teenagers had fallen into a routine. The elfroot grove that Danevhen had shown the humans that first day became their meeting spot, and they would often find each other there mid-morning and go about their duties together. Danevhen taught the humans, whom he learned were twins, to walk silently as they gathered their herbs so as not to disturb the rabbits and squirrels he was hunting; the twins taught him uses for some of the herbs native to that area that even the keeper didn’t know about. If it was hot, the end of the day would often find them wading in the stream or lazing on its banks, swapping stories.

One such evening Elliot and Danevhen were dangling their feet in the water while Emmaline was attempting to wash the stains out of her clothes downstream. “You’re still saying it wrong!” Danevhen told Elliot, throwing a handful of water at him. “It’s Dah-nuh-VHEN.”

“DON-uh-vhen,” Elliot tried, taking a swipe at Danevhen’s face with a muddy hand.

“No!” Danevhen protested with a laugh, dodging away. “How would you like it if I called you El-lie-OT?”

“Don-ee-VHEN?”

“Closer. But you still sound like an shemlen idiot.” Danevhen stood and stretched. “I’d better get home, I’ve got to help with dinner tonight.”

“I’ll just call you ‘D’ then,” said Elliot, also standing.

“That’s awful.” To drive home his point, Danevhen tackled Elliot into the shallow water, soaking both of them to the skin. Without hesitation, Elliot grabbed him by the waist, skillfully reversing their positions and using the weight of his body to hold Danevhen in the running water. Danevhen shrieked, pinching Elliot’s side right where he knew the other boy was ticklish. “Get off of me!” Elliot paused, just for a moment, staring down at Danevhen with an odd look on his face before climbing to his feet, offering a hand to the elf.

“So, can I call you D, or not?” Elliot still had that funny look on his face, half hopeful, half wistful, as if Danevhen’s answer was the most important thing in the world.

“Yeah. Sure.”

Summer turned to fall, which quickly turned to winter, and Danevhen’s meetings with the twins became less frequent. Emmaline explained that this time of year, they were expected to stay home and help their mama make the medicinal poultices and tinctures which were the family’s lifeblood. Still, Danevhen began each morning at their meeting spot, and once or twice a week one or both twins would show up. Today it was both.

“What’s wrong?” Emmaline said immediately upon spotting Danevhen.

He explained how one of the clan’s traders had a confrontation in town the day before with a human shopkeeper accusing the elf of shorting him several pieces of silver and calling the guard to take the money through coercion or through force. The elven trader had backed down, paying the shopkeeper the extra silver just to keep the peace, but now the threat of violence hung over every interaction. It was time for Clan Lavellan to leave.

“When will you be back? Next summer?” asked Elliot.

Danevhen shrugged, despondent. “Maybe. But probably not. If there’s trouble with the humans we normally don’t come back. At all.”

“So this is it,” Emmaline said.

“Guess so.”

Emmaline threw herself at Danevhen in a flurry, wrapping her arms around his neck. Although she was only fourteen to his thirteen, she dwarfed him and he was nearly smothered. He didn’t mind.

“You have to find away to get back,” she demanded.

“I—“

“Promise.”

He promised, then turned to Elliot, who stared down at the ground, not meeting Danevhen’s gaze. “I’ll miss you, D.” Elliot stepped forward tentatively, looking almost as shy as he had the day they met, and wrapped his long arms around Danevhen for what felt like an eternity before disentangling himself. Danevhen caught his wrist before he could step away and pulled him close again. Before Elliot could protest, Danevhen pressed his lips to the human’s for the briefest of moments, then spun and disappeared back into the woods without another word.

 


End file.
